Betsy Rapoport is my friend and she is a an amazing coach for writers. I saw on Facebook where she was hosting a writing class…A Memoir writing class.

I have been longing to write my memoir. I know, I know, I don’t NEED a class…after all I write blogs and I just get an idea and begin to write, much like I am doing now.

Somehow though, when I think of writing a memoir I get all flummoxed and confused and I don’t know where to start.

So, when I saw her class offering, I jumped on it. I registered on line and I began to communicate with her about accommodations etc.

I was thrilled to get the homework list…I love homework.

And there… as I read the list, I laughed out loud.

Here is what was on the list:

What memoirs have you read, and what did you like about it?

What scares you about this class?

What excites you?

Send a sample of your writing, preferably a work in progress.

Simple enough, right? So why my outburst of laughter?

I immediately wrote an email to Betsy and it sounded a little like this…

Dear Betsy,

I have not completed a whole memoir of anyone, only bits a pieces from folks like

Mother Theresa

Nelson Mandela

Rosa Parks

Mahatma Gandhi

I tend to get bored!

I have read loads of other books. I love to read!

The thing that scares me about this class is that my life cannot fill a memoir.

The thing that excites me about this class is that my life is too much for one memoir.

I have NO unfinished works of writing, but I can start one.

Then I pressed Send.

I waited for Betsy to say something like, “you are not at all qualified for this memoir class” or “if you have not even read a whole memoir why would you expect anyone to read yours” or “perhaps you have nothing in progress because you are not a writer.”

Let me tell you why, IF she had said any of the above or worse, it would NOT have affected me in any way.

In 2003 I had decided to do an Olympic distance triathlon.

I began to search online for a trainer, one that would train a newbie triathlete and a rank beginner.

I finally found a web site that touted training beginners and that looked promising.

I began to complete the on line form.

1. What distances do you currently swim? And how often do you swim?

My response:I do not know how to swim competitively and I used to splash around in the pool with my kids when they were young. I know how not to drown. I have not been swimming in a very long time.

I should have added “I hate wearing a swim suit.”

2. What races have you participated in and what was your finish time?

My response:I have not participated in any races so I do not have a finish time. I do not like to run. I like to walk a lot.

3. What cycling distances do you currently do and what is your average mph?

My response: I used to ride with my kids in the carrier seat about 18 years ago and still know how to ride a bike.

I figured they would see I know how to walk and I know how to ride a bike. I know many women my age who do not know how to ride bikes. I thought I was going to be just their type.

I pressed Send.

I got an e mail from someone at the site wanting to find out if I was serious about the Triathlon. If I was why did I not insert the values they needed to create my program.
I assured them that those were indeed the facts and that I had ZERO numerical values to input.

I never heard from them again.

So I began to train on my own and my dear friend Donna was my guide and helper and General ass kicker.

I began to walk slowly with Donna I would count the concrete squares on the path in my town to see how far I had walked.

Then one day I was able to run 5 concrete squares and then walk again.

I felt like calling the trainer to tell them how great I was doing.

I did not.

I bought a really nice bike and some of those clip in shoes and almost killed myself. I used to have to tip over onto the grass to try to get unclipped.

I got tired of falling so I went to spin class and practiced biking with my clip in shoes and also practiced clipping in and out…. but those were stationary bikes so I still almost killed myself when I began to practice on the real bike.

I tried to find a swim teacher who could teach beginners and got fired from about 3 teachers. One guy even took a video of me in the water and showed me what I looked like.

I looked like a spider, I had arms and legs all over the place.

That video was not pretty because I had this image of myself slicing thru water as I had seen Mark Spitz do in the Olympics.

Also I tried to wear cute swim suits with frills and decorations all over and was told that those suits would cause drag in the water. I knew what they knew… my unstreamlined body was causing drag in the water, not these three cute frills on the suit.

I did not give up.

I continued on my very unorthodox way of training.

Six months after attempting to engage the online trainer, I completed my Olympic Distance Triathlon.

I was dead last.

I never gave up.

In the hotel lobby that night, I heard a seasoned triathlete say, “man I got out of the lake, I got kicked in the face and got pissed off!”

I thought, man I never even thought of getting out of the lake and I wondered if I was the spider who had kicked him in the face.

Start where you are…. it’s your only choice.

See you at your finish line, I will be smiling and waiting for you, no matter how long it takes.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.She let go of the committee of indecision within her.She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.She just let go.She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.She didn’t analyse whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her.And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

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I have been having some significant issues the past few weeks.

Most of the time I am able to stay in the moment and to stay out of negative thinking and self judgment. However, a few days ago, all my resolve fell apart and I had nothing left.

I could not crawl into a hole and hide. I could not run away from home. I could not stop caring for the people around me.

I had to find a way through a difficult 24-72 hour period.

So I chose to live by the positive psychology of PERMA.

P is for Positive EmotionE is for EngagementR is for RelationshipM is for Meaning and PurposeA is for Achievement

These five elements are what make life sweet.

If the details of each day put a little deposit into each of the buckets and you can look at the day and feel good and positive about what you accomplished then you are living with PERMA.

Here is an example:

Let’s say you are facing some significant personal issues and you have no energy to do anything for anyone but you want to do a little something for a few key people and you want to feel great about what you do.

Pick a person who needs a little help and do just a small thing, like maybe giving them some tea or a meal or just a call on the tele.

When you do this small thing you will get Positive Emotion from the deed.

You will be Engaged with the person you love.

You will be building the Relationship with that person.

You will have done something that gives Meaning and Purpose to your life.

You will have Achieved something with and for them.

Stacking up these bits of PERMA during a tough day will make you feel a lot better AND will flood your brain with Positive emotion.

It’s not always easy to find something that fills all the buckets, so just being able to fill 3 or 4 is a great start.

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Allow me to set the stage.

A couple weeks ago I buried my father.

I had the highest honor at the funeral to have delivered his eulogy.

It was, BY FAR, the most important speech I had ever and will ever make in my whole life.

I wrote and rewrote and edited and practiced and was generally very anxious about the whole day, but especially that I would do the greatest job I had ever done as a public speaker.

I wanted to rely on my memory but I choose to bring up the iPad and I stuck to the script because I was afraid I would lose my composure.

A dear friend had advised me that the eulogy should educate the congregation about the greatness of my father.

I spoke to my siblings and I spoke to his friends and to many young people that he had mentored and I composed my poetry on my Dad.

During the delivery, I spoke clearly, pausing to breathe and to allow the words to flutter like and angel’s wings over my family and dear friends who were in attendance.

I managed to get through almost 97% of it before my voice cracked and the tears began to flow.

Almost everyone came up or called up to tell me what a beautiful honoring I had done for my father.

Ok Dear Reader,

The stage has been set.

Fast forward to the actual night of the funeral. My siblings and children and nephews and mother are gathered in the humble living room in Trinidad and a friend of my mother comes to visit.

She walks in, loudly announcing that she has spent the whole day in church and has just offered up prayers for my mother.

THEN, she looks at me…

“Indrani,” she says loud and clear, “the eulogy was lovely BUT you should have said how devoted and loving your father was to your mother.”

The WHOLE room of people fell silent.

Everyone is now looking at ME, for my reaction.

Let me remind you Dear Reader, that the funeral would have been less than 8 hours prior and we were all still raw and in pain.

My sister, God bless her, sits upright from a slouched and relaxed position and says, “I MUST DISAGREE WITH YOU. You clearly did not hear the beginning when MY sister talked about their marriage of 62 years!”

The “nasty know it all” woman began to defend her position…she REALLY DID begin to defend her position!

If I wouldn’t have been so pissed I would have been laughing.

I then spoke up in a LOUD and VERY CLEAR VOICE.

And this is what I said….

“I have had many comments on the eulogy and everyone has said how lovely and honoring it was. I must tell YOU, you are the ONLY critic. I MUST give YOU a prize for the honor of being the sole critic.”

I then arose from the sofa, I walked to the dining room table and I picked up a piece of crumpled paper and I PRESENTED it to her.

I said, “THIS is your prize. Congratulations for criticizing the eulogy I spoke at my Dad’s funeral.”

Dear reader of this blog post, YOU should have seen the look on her face.

She could NOT believe that I was indeed defending myself against her attack.

She scampered out of my childhood home as fast as she could.

The lesson of this blog is this…

DO NOT allow nasty people to hijack your beautiful brain. Bring out the big response, stand on your sacred honor and let your brilliance fly.

We all have internal voices that regale us with how many things we do wrong.

This voice seems to take great pleasure in rendering us helpless in the face of challenge.

It happily reminds us about all the things we failed to finish. It shifts and disrupts the ground from under our feet with all the things we can’t do.

If we believe these internal onslaughts, we remain tightly wrapped and bound by our failures instead of being able to open up those failures and glean the lessons in each.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run with Wolves tells us we can “dismantle the assaults of the natural predator by taking to heart and working with what is truthful in what the predator says and discarding the rest.”

If my internal predator says “you are so wasteful, you have so much fabric and never finish any quilts”…I can calmly tell myself that I have made and finished more that 12 quilts and each child has at least two quilts handmade completely by me.

This example is quite tame. It can happen, however that my internal predator can tell me something like:

“Oh, so you think you are so special and want to end Gender Violence? Well missy….YOU have been yelling at people all your life. You even yelled at someone last week! Who are you to think you can do this?”

I will then have to have the presence of mind to remind myself that I am human and while I still do yell, I am trying to stay calm in situations and to treat others as I want to treat myself.

If I can do these exercises with my OWN internal predator, then I have a fighting chance to speak MY truth in the face of an external predator. The person who wants to abuse me physically, emotionally or verbally is an example of an external predator, whereas, an internal predator is the negative voice that tries to bring me down.

The external predators can do serious damage to my psyche and if I do not develop the internal muscles against my internal predators then I have very little chance of standing up to external predators.

Estes tells us that we can “dismantle our predator by maintaining our intuitions and instincts and by resisting the predator’s seductions.”

How do you hone your instincts when the world is ready to tell you that what you feel is false and that your instincts are stupid?

The only answer is that YOU must believe in YOU!

You have to be courageous enough to know that you have deep understandings about life.

You can sit in prayer or mediation and recall times in your life when you did listen to your instincts and were happy because you did.

Like any skill, listening to your instincts is a muscle you must build up.

You must have patience, and practice on little things.

For example, if someone asks you to do something, instead of answering from your head, take a few minutes to notice the way your body is reacting to the request.

Do you feel happy and joyful, or heavy and dark when you think of the request?

Only you will be able to read the signs that your body give you.

Then, you have to be courageous enough to follow your natural instincts.

This may mean that you have to say NO to things you used to say YES to.

I know someone who recently told her boyfriend that she would no longer take part in orgy sex. She was very scared to do it and felt he would leave her if she refused. Whenever she had done it in the past, she felt dirty and less worthy but he always told her that she was the prettiest one in the room. She so badly wanted to hold on to him, she continued with behaviors that left her feeling empty and nauseous.

When she finally decided to stop the orgy sex, she delivered her decision and he promptly left her. He found someone who would do exactly what he told her to do.

It took her a while to recover but now she is happy that she found the courage to end that part of her life.

She had to get used to a new normal. A life without big lavish parties…but now she has her life and her body and self worth.

When you decide to counteract the internal predator it will mean that you must get used to a new normal.

Give yourself time to craft the new way.

Give yourself a pat on the back every time you kick the internal predator to the curb.
Love and light,
Indrani

Ever walk into a room and instantly notice that something smells? Stale smoke, mold, mildew. A habit like smoking lingers…so even if you are not the smoker and you are breathing the smoke second hand, you can be effected. The toxins stick.

Toxic people and situations stick to stuff.

Abuse not only affects the victim and those who may be witnesses but as a party several degrees removed, you still can sense the anger and fear. Perhaps it is a broken lamp, a noticeable bruise or wound, a torn piece of clothing, a broken window…the violence now affects you. You may feel scared, fearful, and angry at the perpetrator. You find yourself walking on egg shells in a play that has ended but the signs are still there. Now you have the toxins.

The toxins of verbal abuse resonate beyond the fight. A husband and wife argue. The wife saturated with the toxins of her husband’s venom then pushes those toxins out to her children. You are at the playground or school and you see the kids now fighting using the same words they heard at home, the name calling, the demeaning talk. Now those toxins from the original argument have affected those who are unaware of the verbal toxins of the home. Now they have affected innocent people outside of the original dumping ground.

We expose ourselves to third party toxins from events, habits, situations we never knew existed but we walk away changed and not for the good. Some of those toxins may even trigger dormant hurts from our past like shame, fear, and helplessness. We have to rely on our sixth sense, our intuition or our gut to remove ourselves from these poisons so that we do not suffer or get injured.

Have you ever been in a room where you could feel the tension and you know something just happened? Have you felt the shame as someone calls another worthless, and you take on that shame as if it was your own?

We need to listen to our intuition to save us from the ugly toxins that surround us. Do you have the courage to walk away in these situations?

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